Islamic Fundamentalism and the Rise of Terrorism

It is curious that in each of the world’s dominant “revealed” religions -- Judaism, Christianity and Islam -- it is the fundamentalist element that is most troublesome and dangerous.

Consider Islam.

The government of Iran is controlled by radical Islamic Shiite mullahs. It has the form of a secular state with an elected legislature, but in everything that matters it is a fundamentalist Islamic state. Its legal system is based on Islamic Sharia law that regulates all aspects of social life and conduct and prescribes traditional (and harsh) punishments for violations of law. Saudi Arabia, while in form a kingdom, tolerates a powerful and barely controlled radical group of Wahabi Muslims, who teach hatred of outsiders and jihad against westerners in general and Americans in particular. The Taliban in Afghanistan had established a fundamentalist theocracy under Islamic Sharia law. They executed, tortured or imprisoned anyone who opposed their tyrannical rules and they did so cruelly in the name of Allah, their god.

Radical Islamic fundamentalist groups exist throughout the Middle East and in many countries in Africa and Asia, from Libya and Egypt to Pakistan and Indonesia, and among these groups are Islamic terrorist organizations.

The Islam represented by these various radical fundamentalist groups is very different from the Islam I knew from reading Islamic religious texts while I was in graduate theological school many years ago. While Holy War is mentioned as something that may be necessary occasionally, the general Islamic outlook has been positive and peaceful and common sense ethical values are urged as the basis of human conduct. Islam’s holy writings and religious texts consist largely of sayings typical of the “wisdom literature” that was prevalent in the ancient Near East and are comparable to the Book of Proverbs in Jewish and Christian writings.

So where does this radical militant element in Islam come from? Why does this distortion of traditional mainstream Islamic teaching have such widespread appeal among contemporary Muslims? There are several reasons.

In medieval times Islamic countries were centers of creativity, learning and wealth. This intellectual tradition in Islam began to decline after the defeat of Islam by Christian knights during the several medieval Crusades to seize Palestine from Muslim control. Beginning with the Protestant Reformation, Western nations began their ascendancy in science, technology and economic development, while Islamic areas remained isolated under a series of tyrants and despots and eventually came under the control of Western colonial powers. Only in recent years have Islamic states emerged from domination by colonial powers.

Muslims feel humiliation, pain and anger at the perceived unfairness of their diminished status in the world. Instead of blaming their leaders, or themselves, or the exigencies of life for their situation, their despotic leaders encourage Muslims to blame their diminished status on foreign nations in general and the Christian west in particular, for continuing the Christian Crusade against Islam. In recent days Islamic frustration and anger has been increasingly directed toward theUnited States for what it perceives as economic and cultural decadence. Islamic purists want to protect their culture from evil Western influences by turning back the clock to a pre-modern time. Western civilization is viewed by Islam as morally corrupt, and it is an easy next step for the radical Muslim to view Western culture as a great evil that needs to be destroyed in the name of god.

The concept of jihad, of religious “holy war,” has long been a part of Islam but its role has been played down in recent centuries and only recently has jihad re-emerged as a political strategy among extremist Muslims, to the considerable embarrassment of some Arab states and Islamic leaders. Jihad has been interpreted by some Islamic leaders to legitimize revenge and provides an outlet for anger and frustration for the Arab street. That is the precursor and the basis of Islamic terrorism.

Fundamentalist Islam has a strong moralistic “puritanism” running through it. Like Judaism, Islam is a religion of law, religious duties and prohibitions. Its outlook is much closer to the Old Testament concept of religious obligation and obedience than it is to the New Testament’s “freedom from the law” and commitment to the obligation of love (agape) as the guiding moral principle. There is an undercurrent of absolutism and arrogance even in traditional forms of Islam. It is apparent in the frequent reference to infidels in Islamic scriptures, and it means those who are not Muslims, those who do not possess the truth, those who are not included among the friends and allies of Allah. Islamic writings command Muslims to convert infidels to the true religion of Islam. From our western perspective it is hard to understand the depth of anger that Muslims feel when western infidels intrude into a Moslem holy place.

Unfortunately religious leaders who believe that they alone have the truth and who believe it is their mission to spread that truth easily delude themselves and their followers into believing that the ends justify the means, that in the name of their religious truth they are justified in using whatever means they deem necessary to achieve what they believe are the noble ends and purposes of Allah. However self-deception is the beginning point of evil. The Muslim terrorist deludes himself into believing that his purposes are the purposes of god and that he has become the chosen medium for bringing Allah’s retribution to the infidels.

The dilemma for fundamentalist Muslims is that, in order to destroy evil, they become more evil than the evil they seek to destroy.